Joing You
by Rimbaud's ghostThe Rebel
Summary: Set during Chamber of Secrets, this story follows the lives of Percy and Penelope as they try to aid the teachers of Hogwarts, and find themselves. includes angst, slash, and goth!penelope.
1. prologue

Summary: Set during Chamber of Secrets, this story follows the lives of Percy and Penelope as they try to aid the teachers of Hogwarts, and to find themselves. Angst, goth!penelope, slash: Percy/diary!Tom, Percy/OC, Penelope/OC.   


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DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters don't belong to me, and until they do, you'll have to settle for this little bit of fanfic. no harm intended, and so on. thanks!   


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Author notes: The Prologue takes place towards the end of Chamber of Secrets and in a dream sequence recalling Percy's first year at Hogwarts (which according to Nomad's Hogwarts Register is the 1987/1988 school year) the rest of the fic will take place during CoS. I know percy let us all down big time in OotP, but sigh, aren't you curious why?   
also, thanks to Karen who beta-ed this baby.   


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_Joining You _ by The Rebel  
PROLOGUE:  
  


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His skin felt weak and disgustingly human against the cold dungeon floor. The walls, dotted with flickering torches, loomed over Percy Weasley, as he lay askew in the center of a small room overflowing with old books. Cold air circulated sinisterly through the room, rustling the pages of the dark tomes and whispering to Percy.   
"Get out of my head!" Percy hissed, closing his eyes until it hurt and he could see fractals dancing and squirming on the back of his eyelids.   
"Get out of my head.... Get out..." Percy weakly gasped for air as he became more and more lightheaded, and could feel a pool of blood accumulating around his outstretched hands, hot and sticky against the cold stone floor. His fingers reached out uselessly and desperately for the innocent looking wand only inches away. As brilliant flashes of light washed over him, he clenched his fists, white knuckles and bleeding palms. His breath quickened, and then he felt darkness gently coating his mind, coaxing his tense stature into perfect relaxation. And his lips curled into a real smile for what seemed like the first time since he had arrived at school five years ago as he quietly slipped out of consciousness...   


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First year students milled around the gray hallway, whispering nervously and impatiently to one another. Percy Weasley stood off to the side, awkward and quite clearly alone. He felt overwhelmed and lost among the masses of happy chattering students. He was too quiet, too serious. While his parents couldn't have hoped for a better-behaved child, Percy always suspected they secretly wished he were more like his rambunctious siblings. The Weasleys simply couldn't understand Percy's desire for solitude or his inherently serious nature. He stood out like a sore thumb in his family, and he wasn't expecting to fit in better at Hogwarts. But Percy was full of anticipation, because he knew that within these great walls he would learn all the secrets of magic, and he knew that knowledge is power. In front of Percy a rather burly boy with wavy brown hair (and what would undoubtedly one day be a roguish smile) was loudly telling a rather small girl with black curly hair and huge eyes that he was sure he would be sorted into Gryffindor. The curly haired girl wasn't really paying attention, though the other boy didn't notice this, as she hopped up and down trying to see what was going on in the front. In the confusion, a rather hardheaded boy with black hair backed abruptly into Percy, causing his glasses to clatter to the ground.   
"Watch it!" the other boy roared, turning around to find the stomach that had connected with his elbow.   
Percy gasped and looked wildly around at the indiscernible mass of color and noise surrounding him. He felt sick to his stomach and the room began to spin, his already blurred classmates whirling together faster and faster. Percy squatted down and fumbled around the floor blindly searching for his glasses as the other boy brushed himself off indignantly. Percy's hands connected with the wire frames which he quickly perched on his nose, only to see, as the room came into focus, the larger boy standing menacingly above him with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant grin on his face.   
"If you know what's good for you, four eyes, you'd best be watchin' where you going!" the other boy growled, as he picked up Percy and shoved his wiry frame into the castle wall.   
"S-s-sorry," Percy sputtered, disoriented, as he desperately glanced at the other students around him silently begging them for help.   
"No one is going to come to your rescue, you...you, fag!" The brown haired boy spat out, with a hateful glint in his otherwise vacant eyes. The boy painfully twisted the pale freckled skin below Percy's neck and laughed, as a silence fell over the bustling crowd of first years.   
  
"First year students, welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagell, and I would please ask you to follow me to the great hall for the sorting ceremony."   
  
The students excitedly followed the stern green-robed witch through a large Gothic arch, all the students except for Percy. As the room emptied, he let out a sigh and slumped limply to the floor, head in hands.   
_Why did he choose me to pick on? Why didn't the other students stop him? I hate him and I hate them! It's not fair!_   
Percy clenched his fists angrily, not breathing. The silence was broken by the angry sound of a stained glass window exploding. (Almost instantly a hobbled over house elf was busy sweeping up the shards, as the window magically rebuilt itself).   
Biting his lip, Percy scolded himself.   
_Control yourself. They can't know they hurt me. But I won't forget it. And I will be powerful one day, and it will never happen again._   
_Get up. Get up. _   
Percy took a deep wheezing breath, and bracing himself against the wall, stood up and reluctantly entered the great hall. Only the long-suffering house elf witnessed the odd dignity in the small boys limping march.   
  
"Percival Weasley!" Professor McGonagall declared, holding up a rather large patched-up hat. Percy self-consciously walked to the front of the Great Hall, trying to hold his head up gracefully. He stumbled over a maliciously outstretched foot as he broke through the front of the crowd of first years. Although he managed to catch himself, it was not before the group erupted with cruel laughter. He looked around to see who had tried to trip him, but his glance was met only by merciless smiles and closed eyes. As he sat down on the chair he thought to himself how much he hated them. A second later, a large hat was placed on his head obscuring his view of the pitiless crowd.   
  
"Ahhh another Weasley," whispered a raspy voice which seemed to echo through Percy's skull.   
_No_, he thought angrily, ironically, _I've never been much of a Weasley._   
"Resentment and anger, yes, yes, perhaps a Slytherin then…" it paused before continuing, almost as if to itself "But I placed such a similar mind in Slytherin, only fifty one years ago, and he was great, yes, but perhaps he might have been good instead, given a different environment…tricky, tricky..." it trailed off.   
"Alternately ignored and tormented by your family, you do not feel at home there…perhaps you can never be at home anywhere, young Percival."   
Percy felt his stomach sink, but he steeled himself and thought fiercely _I don't need home, I don't need anybody._   
The Hat continued, "No perhaps not, you crave power- you wish to stand on your own two feet, and no doubt you can. You certainly have the brains and ambition. And yet…you are certainly not a Slytherin (you lack that disregard for the rules that Salazar so prized) or a Ravenclaw (though you do have a brilliant mind under that mess of emotion), and most decidedly not a Hufflepuff. Perhaps it would be best to keep up appearances then, as a Gryffindor?"   
The hat began to speak again in an ominous tone, most quietly and seriously, "Young Percival, a fine line has been set before you. You must walk it carefully and neither fall nor falter as you strive to reach the light at the end. Failure will be most devastating. Can you play by their rules?"   
The hat let it's musings hang in the air purposefully, before calling out,   
"Gryffindor!"   
The last word echoed through the great hall, which was quickly dissolving into blackness…//   


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"Percy? Percy!"   
His eyes languidly opened and closed for a few seconds before he recognized the concerned young woman shaking him.   
"Penelope?" he whispered steadily but almost inaudibly. "What happened?"   
"I'm here, and you're okay," she replied.   
He remembered now. The promise of a silent night, of a dreamless sleep without magic. Without pain. And the flashback dream, the cruel sorting, the beginning of it. Never the end.   
"I should be dead," he stated plainly, defiantly.   
He studied her face intently and met her worried stare coldly. "Why am I still here?"   
Penelope looked helplessly at the pale boy whose head rested heavily on her black robes. His shock of red hair, usually prim, measured, and combed; now unkempt like a dying fire being fed wax by a bored pyromaniac. Singeing her fingers. Sleepless eyes puffed up with shadows like ash, cold and dead. Tight lips on perfect skin, never a hint of laughter. Penelope softly caressed the young boys' shoulders with her expert and callused fingers.   
_Like a fallen angel, he feels pain where he remembers his wings should be. _  
She traced circles into his bruised skin, which was dusted with freckles and glittering light from the torches.   
Like a fanatical valentine made out of construction paper and crayons and glitter and blood and tears.   
The tense knots in Percy's shoulders held out famously for a moment before succumbing to the other prefect's careful touch. As the boy melted quietly in her arms, Penelope saw only her own mass of curly black hair through the tears clouding up her eyes.   
  



	2. One

Summary: in which we discover what it is that keeps Percy so busy locked up in his room all summer.   


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DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters don't belong to me, and until they do, you'll have to settle for this little bit of fanfic. no harm intended, and so on. thanks!   


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Author notes: tried really hard here to tie in my story to canon events, hope its sound so far. i could use a beta for this one.   


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_Joining You _ by The Rebel  
Chapter One:  
  


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Percy walked with control. His face, which once revealed so much emotion and so much pain, was sealed to his schoolmates and teachers. He cultivated an image of perfection. Bossy and strict, he ran the Gryffindor tower with an iron fist.   
_A horribly ineffectual iron fist_, he thought wretchedly to himself, knowing that when he turned his back there were always snickers and disdainful glares. Conscious that he could never command respect from his charges or his peers.   
Only the adults seem impressed, or even convinced, by his façade. His professors valued his tireless effort and exact (not to mention obsessively correct) results. Although Headmaster Dumbledore was never fooled- and had taken to speckling his praise to Percy with annoying hints that there was more to life than school or rules. His parents, who had been so worried about him in his youth (always fussing that he never seemed to smile or play loudly like his brothers), were now easily sated with his prefect badge and top grades. The teasing and isolation were inconsequential; he was not powerless anymore, at least to the people who mattered. He could easily command respect from adults; he had mastered their game and knew just how to use its rules to succeed. He wanted desperately to be an adult; he lived for their rules and standards. So black and white, they seemed, so easily achieved. It didn't matter his methods, only his results. And his results were always perfect.  
"Perfect Prefect Percy!" giggled Fred as George grinned widely, having just broken through the various locking spells that enchanted Percy's door.   
"We were just wondering-"  
"-What you have been up to?"  
"What my brother means, is-"  
"-What I mean, of course is-"  
"-We hardly see you except at mealtimes."  
"Oh," Percy muttered ruefully under his breath, "and perhaps that is not a large enough window of opportunity for your two to try out your latest practical jokes on me?" "-It's no fun at all to just play jokes on Ron and Ginny."  
"After all," added Fred, playfully bowing, "they lack your famous-"  
"-Sense of humor." George finished before the twins scampered off leaving the door to Percy's room wide open and a rather innocent looking small package in the doorframe.  
Percy sighed, and quietly summoned the package (thankful prefects were allowed to responsibly use magic during holidays) before tapping it with his wand and muttering "Finite Incantatum." The package shuddered before morphing into its true form, a firecracker with a long fuse that was currently burning slowly. Shaking his head, Percy pinched the end of the wick, relishing at the ticklish pain that pierced his fingertips.   
He resolved to finish work as soon as possible on the new locking and privacy charms he was developing, the twins should not have been able to get in. He sat down in front of his desk and reached for worn copies of "Crypto Theory: Codes, Ciphers, and Magic" and "Practical Applications of Arithmancy: From Predicting The Future To Room-Sealing Spells." He was thoroughly engrossed in a rather interesting passage about applications of chaos theory in the creation of unplottable charms (perhaps if you can't find the locking charm, you can't crack it, Percy mused) when his train of thought was interrupted by his the magically amplified voice of his mother telling him to get down to dinner at once, or else.   
  


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"Poor dear," clucked Mrs. Weasley as she sashayed to the dinner table holding a steaming plate of (some sort of English food) "something horrible must have happened." Mr. Weasley cleared his throat, "Now, dear, I simply received word from my friend in the Improper Use of Magic Department that Harry had been cited and received a letter. I'm sure it's not serious, and after all he is just a young boy, surely they wouldn't take drastic action."  
The twins listened to their parent's conversation hungrily and demanded to know what had happened.  
"Well, Mrs. Hopkirk- Mafalda Hopkirk, you met her at the interoffice ministry picnic two summers ago boys- just owled us some news about Harry Potter. It seems that they just picked up on a spell cast at the Dursley residence-"  
"Hateful gits-" Fred piped up.  
"-Probably deserved it!" added George.  
"Ahem," Arthur continued, "it seemed Young Harry used a Hover Charm, and as you know using magic during holidays is an infraction of the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery Decree."  
"Which is a serious violation, mind you, in the eyes of the School's Governors," Percy explained "and further infraction could get Harry expelled."  
Ginny's eyes went wide. Ron looked at Percy witheringly   
"And no doubt you think that's a fair rule. Probably think that Harry deserves to spend the entire year with the Dursleys!"  
"Well, of course n-"   
Percy's reply was cut off by Mr. Dursley, who laughingly reproached his sons and called for "A second helping Dear, the food is delicious!" Ron worriedly whispered something to Fred. Fred chewed thoughtfully for a moment before his eyes lit up and he began to excitedly whisper with George.  
"If you don't mind," George said graciously.  
"We would like to be excused," Fred finished, as he, George, and Ron got up and ran out of the room.  
The rest of the Weasleys finished their meal quietly. By the time dessert was served, Mrs. Weasley was horrified to notice that the hands on the kitchen clock that represented Ron and the twins had gone from "At Home" to "Travelling."  
  


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Ginny wandered upstairs, leaving her frantic parents to their own devices. She paused outside of Percy's room. It was quiet. She pressed her ears against the wall expecting to hear book pages rustling. Instead her ears were met with quiet sobs. Ginny knew that Percy wasn't okay. She could see it in his eyes when he stood; stony faced, as the twins made fun of him. She saw the desperate hungry look that flickered across his face whenever their parents were affectionate to his siblings, never to him. She knew the lengths he went to please them, for their attention. He always played it by the book for them. Followed every rule, achieved every goal with quiet, studious, persistence. Without joy, only an obsessive passion and a false pride that is the result of forgetting that it was just supposed to be a game to play along with. She sat outside his door for a moment, lost in though, before padding back to her room and going to sleep.   


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An official Hogwarts letter arrived addressed to Percy Weasley the next morning.   
"Twelve Ordinary Wizarding Levels" Percy told his parents, with a quiet voice laced through with a tenuous strand of pride.  
"Lovely dear" Mrs. Weasley said absentmindedly, ""You always do so well."  
"Didn't Bill get twelve O.W.L.S. when he was Percy's age?" Mr. Weasley remarked distractedly.   
"Yes" Mrs. Weasley sighed, "I can't believe the boys aren't home yet. I have half a mind to…"  
  


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Percy shoved his copy of "Geometry And Astronomy: Seven Exercises In Advanced Arithmancy" aside. Between the ghoul in the attic banging on the pipes and the mysterious thuds against the side of the house he couldn't concentrate. He peered wearily out his window, only to come face to face with a rather large ugly lawn gnome. He could hear Fred whopping "Good one George! Ten points if it hits Percy's window!" and Ron and Harry laughing. Harry? Percy supposed that's whom Ron and the twins had gone to get last night.   
They probably stole dad's flying car too. I told him that he shouldn't enchant the damn thing, let alone leave it lying around. This reckless rule breaking isn't going to look good or go unnoticed. Dad's job is unstable enough as it is, I wish they realized the financial peril that their adventure will undoubtedly cost us. Percy didn't blame them for being concerned about Harry, although he hardly thought that Harry's rule breaking necessarily meant he was in trouble. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had practically been rewarded for breaking about a thousand school rules at the end of last semester! No, just because Harry had used magic, it did not mean that it had been out of necessity. Just the same, Ron had told the Weasleys about the Dursleys, and Percy was relieved that Harry was out of their care. But then again, he thought, Dumbledore and the Ministry probably know about the conditions of Harry's living arrangement. If they allowed it, to be sure, there was a good reason.   
The Attic ghoul let out a pitiful groan.   
"Yeah, me too buddy" commiserated Percy.  
He shrugged and cast a silencing charm about his room, rendering it virtually sound proof. He thought it was rather fitting that the spell he had adapted for this purpose had traditionally been used to silence the song of a Fwooper, which would drive the listener insane if heard. Laughing ruefully to himself, Percy sat down at his desk and reached for a small wooden chest.   
No bigger than the size of his fist, the chest was inlaid with the image of a majestic ridegeback dragon. It had been a gift from Charlie, who had felt rather guilty after a certain prank he had pulled on Percy two years ago. But Charlie hadn't realized how special the box was; he had not been able to figure out how to open it. Percy stroked the smooth surface of the box tentatively, looking rather unsure of himself. Looking almost guilty. The dragon's scales glittered as it eyed Percy lazily. Tapping the chest three times with his wand, he whispered "Dissendium." The chest did not open, but the dragon slid to the side, revealing several keyholes. Percy reached inside his sweater vest, trying not to look at the Prefect badge, which glittered at him almost reproachfully, and pulled out a delicate silver chain around his neck bedecked with an unusual charm. Holding the charm, which resembled a coiled snake, in his fist he whispered "transengorgio biblio." The charm became warm to the touch as it was transfigured into a long silver key. The key fit easily into the second keyhole and with a clicking sound, the chest opened. Inside was rather larger than a muggle might expect and contained about twenty sinister looking books. Each book looked old and worn, and had been collected through various means, mostly from junk shops. Finding more rare and interesting books among myriad benign and unwanted volumes, Percy had built up quite a collection of rare literature by transfiguring the cover into something more innocent and worthless before purchasing the book cheaply. Junk shops rarely bothered to sort through the books they received, let alone to put any sort of anti-theft spells on them. Percy reached for a book, dressed in red leather, which had a thin layer of dust obscuring the title. Blowing away the dust, the title appeared in elegant gold script: "The Forbidden Science: Theoretical Applications of the Dark Arts."  
  



End file.
